>> i will give you a job if you don't like it here. come work fome. >> great to see you, michael moore. anderson cooper right now. we are in hoboken, new jersey right now, just across the fallout from sandy still coming. new york governor andrew cuomo is expected to address the media shortly. we will monitor what he says and bring you late details should the governor make news. bellevue right now evacuating patients. 700 patients in all. this will be going on all night long after a day of running the generator. the rooftop generators with buckets of fuel from the basement passed hand to hand up 13 flights of stairs, if you can

imagine. and now traffic in manhattan jammed solid. the subways expected to start to come on-line tomorrow, but in a very, very limited way. people now jamming buses or simply walking. things are improving slightly in places. but this crisis is far from over and it is evolving almost minute by minute. we have all of the angles starting with president obama and new jersey governor chris christie. with the election near but the disaster now two political rivals joined hands and got to work. they saw a shoreline battered beyond recognition, almost beyond belief. mile after mile of destruction. home after home, life after life. on the ground at a local shelter no political complications, just simple need and promises from each man to meet it. >> governor christie, throughout this process, has been responsive. he's been aggressive in making sure that the state got out in front of this incredible storm.

and i think the people of new jersey recognize that he has put his heart and soul in to making sure the people of new jersey bounce back even stronger than before. i want to thank him for his extraordinary leadership. >> i cannot thank the president enough for his personal concern and compassion for our state and for the people of our state. >> ask you to back up, please. >> in hoboken, new jersey, that meant the national guard, nowhere to be seen until last night was out in force today, rescuing people stranded and getting hungry. >> could have survived one night without food and water. in staten island, police choppers did rooftop rescues. at sea the navy is moving three warships in to the area, capable of serving as off-shore helicopter bases. this is still a fast-moving emergency. [ sirens ] >> proof this afternoon evacuations at another major hospital, bellvue, 700 patients on the move. elsewhere the city it seemed like no one moving.

>> i think anyone that tried to drive in new york city realized there are a lot of cars on the road. traffic is very heavy. >> reporter: new york's mayor bloomberg announced bridges in manhattan are open but limiting most incoming cars to three occupants or more. for the subways limited service tomorrow but a lot of work ahead. kennedy is up and running. la guardia still closed. the crane, now they say it is tied down and secure. but elsewhere, no progress. only a clearer view of the loss. here in new york city's breezy point more homes destroyed than first thought. and on the jersey shore, a simple fact comes to thought for the mayor of seaside heights. >> we are taking baby steps. we will sort it out at the end trying to get semblance of what was. >> a short time ago andrew cuomo tweeted this picture that we

want to show you. a picture of national guard troops moving patients out of bellvue hospital. he thanked them for their help. they have been working tirelessly to get the patients to safety and work the bucket brigade that has been carrying fuel to the emergency generators. multiple flights of stairs. the evacuation should be completed by noon tomorrow. of course one of the challenges is where to take the patients. several hospitals had to evacuate patients as well. nyu langone medical center had to move patients during the storm on monday night after its generators failed. bellvue, a couple of blocks south of nyu, chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta has been there and is joining me now. he's live. this evacuation has been going on all day and you have been covering it for hours. i is it going on all night long? >> it is set to go on all night long. you can see the ambulances lined

up here behind me. they expect until noon tomorrow. i talked to the chief of the hospital not long ago and they said they are about half way done with evacuations. it is a order of medical triage. so the sickest patients first and as time goes on, patients will be less and less critical. >> some of these patients are being carried down as many as 18 flights of stairs. that's posing a lot of danger obviously. >> reporter: there's no light. there's hardly any food. as you mentioned earlier, the national guard is helping with some of that. it's unbelievable. i have to say -- keep in mind, maybe it is obvious these doctors and nurses, many of them are affected by the storm, their families, their homes, all of that. many have been here from the beginning have not left. the national guard, which you were describing earlier, had a

bucket brigade, generators take 40 gallons an hour to run. they had to get 40 gallons of fuel up 13 flights of stairs and they used a bucket brigade to do that and kept doing it. they were doing it hours on end. they thought they would keep doing it. what prompted the evacuation today is when they started to clear some of the water from the basement where the fuel pumps are, they realized the damage was worse than they thought it was. at that point they realized they needed to evacuate. it was going to take too long. they needed to do something. >> we have seen a lot of heroic work, sanjay, at nyu before the situation and now at bellvue and our thoughts are with the doctors 'national guard and the nurses and orderlies. in our hour at 8:00, i think i misspoke and said there were no more hospitals in manhattan open. i forgot about beth israel.

which is down at the lower eve east side. so there is one. la guardia will open tomorrow. that's the good news. as for the limited subway service that resumes tomorrow in new york, there in new york, no trains will be running south of 34th street, an area that includes, of course, the financial district. sandy's crippled the nation's biggest transit system. some stations remain under water right now. there's catastrophic damage to underground tracks and equipment. the mta says it is too early to tell when full service will return or if every subway line can be fixed. some of them may be beyond repair. millions of riders depend on the subway each day, all of us in the city. a few commuter train lines went into service this afternoon. for the most part, commuters relied on buses, on cars, on cabs if they could get them and gouged for prices on the cabs. there is gridlock as bad as we have ever seen in manhattan. look at this. this is columbus circle south of central park on the west side earlier today. one massive traffic jam largely

caused by the crane which is still dangling over 57th street and closed off the region, about a seven-block area around there. jason carroll is joining me from the queensboro bridge that connects manhattan and queens. what's the latest in terms of people trying to get in to manhattan. i has been a nightmare for them all day, jason. >> reporter: you are right. it has been a frustrating day for commuters. we have been watching throughout the day, not just here at the queensboro bridge but downtown at the brooklyn bridge. a few stragglers are making the late-night trek across the queensboro bridge trying to get out of manhattan. we have been seeing this all day throughout the day. thousands of people moving in and out of the city, unable to take a train or subway because they weren't up and running. the buses were running and are running, at least in this section of the city. you can see the line here, even at this hour, at 10:00, a line here going down the block to try to get on that one bus that's still waiting to take on some passengers.

people telling us they waited three to four hours at a certain point to get on a bus, anderson. people have been patient throughout the day. look at the video we shot two hours ago, right here where we were. people were rushing, crushing, trying to get on the bus that pulled up. people had been patient all day but their tempers got the best of them, for a while as everyone tried to get on this one particular bus that pulled up. we saw an elderly man and woman try to get on. people allowed them to back up, allowed them to get on and then the crush started again. it ended with people doing what they needed to do. the bus driver turning and saying we will make this happen. he said have a nice day as they pulled off and despite what you are seeing there, eventually things turned out all right. at least for now. one u.p.s. worker who decided not to take the bus decided he was going to make the walk like

so many people did today across the bridge. he summed up the feeling of a lot of commuters today. listen to what he had to say. tell me about the commute for you today? >> i walked from queens boulevard over here. >> put that in perspective for me. what kind of walk was that. >> a marathon. >> a marathon. >> marathon. that's what you could call it. >> what are we talking about in terms of hours. >> two hours of walk. no buses, nothing. need train service really bad. >> anderson, one woman i think basically summed it up. i'm going to paraphrase what she said. i asked her about her commute and she said i have to walk a few hours one way and few hours the other way but at least i have a home to go to and given what we know about the after effects of the storm so many people do not have a home to go to. that is probably one thing we should keep in perspective as we watch these commuters complain or in some cases complain about the long commute they have today and will likely have again tomorrow.

yeah. we are all in this together. everybody is pretty much in the same boat. hope people's patience continues in the days ahead. this is the a long recovery. the images of flooded subway tunnels are surreal. never seen anything like this. andrea bernstein, a reporter for wnyc radio, got a firsthand look at some of the damage. she is joining me now. andrea, you got in to path train station downtown. that links manhattan to new jersey. hoboken, you saw the flooding firsthand a lot of people in hoboken have been asking me about this. what did it look like? how was it? >> it was completely dark and the water was up to the subway platform. this is the world trade center station. the station was destroyed and then rebuilt after the world trade center attacks.

now the governor says there's salt water going back five miles in that tunnel to new jersey. >> five miles in the tunnel. do they have any kind of timetable when they may be able to get it repaired, or are they going to have to wait to get the water out before they can assess it. >> they haven't giving us a timetable. we spoke to colonel owen of the army corps of engineers who was in new orleans after hurricane katrina, and he said that new york city is a much more complex problem because these tunnels are so deep and they are so long. and the path tunnel may be even luckier, if you will, than the subway tunnels because the subway tunnels, the system that just had its 108th birthday on saturday, one day before hurricane sandy hit.

some of the electrical equipment in the tunnel -- some are so old they don't know what is the affect of salt water eroding the tunnels. one thing that struck me is that governor cuomo was talking quite firmly yesterday and today about climate change and how climate change has made lower manhattan much more vulnerable to these storm surges and has made the subway system vulnerable, which is unfortunately something that what was predicted and predictable. >> well, it's also something -- i was talking to a climate change expert today. it is only going to get worse. we have seen the water rise a foot over the last 100 years but the next 100 years should be rising in an area of two three feet. for an island like manhattan that is something we have to contend. andrea, appreciate you telling us what you saw today.

thank you very much. late word that governor christie has taken action to boost fuel supplies in the state waiving licensing rules and making it easier for local sellers to bring in diesel and gasoline from out of state. there are a lot of folks if they can drive around don't have the gas to do it anymore. what the governor and president obama saw today as they toured some of the hardest-hit areas in new jersey. ñ?

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lifelock protection risk free for a full 60 days. use promo code: gethelp. plus get this document shredder free-- but only if you act right now. call the number on your screen now! shot of the manhattan skyline. power outage on one end of the island and farther uptown, i say apparently because manhattan, new york city or new york region won't be back to normal for a while. because of that, just moments ago, new york governor andrew cuomo declared a transportation emergency announcing that from now until the end of the week all travel on public transit, buses, subways, any subways that are running, and commuter trains will be free. the idea being to get people who need to come in to manhattan to work out of private cars and off the streets. we know a number of people have

obviously lost their lives. 28 people lost their lives in new york city. 56 across sandy's deadly path in the u.s. as we are seeing, both at ground level and especially from the air, the worst physical destruction is along the jersey shore. some of the images have been extraordinary. as you saw at the top, president obama and governor christie toured the devastation area. more on that from jessica yellin right now. >> crisis makes unexpected political bedfellows. >> i cannot thank the president enough for his personal concern for his compassion and concern for the people of our state. >> president obama returned the favor. >> he has put his heart and soul in to making sure the people of new jersey bounce back even stronger than before. >> reporter: obama and christie on the presidential helicopter to review the storm ravaged coast, touring a shelter for residents who lost everything. >> fema here right now.

>> and walking in a neighborhood among the hardest hit. among the surprises, a president not known for displaying affection showed it this day. >> we will get you together. i promise you. promise. you are going to be okay. >> and governor christie, one of mitt romney's top campaign attack dogs. >> give you a plane ticket back to chicago you have earned. >> reporter: went out of his way to talk about his leadership credentials. >> he has sprung in to action immediately to help us getting those things in the car riding together. this is our sixth conversation this weekend and it has been a great working relationship. >> the storm's political map, on the plus side for the president, acting as emergency responder in chief.

>> i've instituted a 15-minute rule essentially on my team. you return everybody's phone calls in 15 minutes whether it the mayor's, governors, county officials. if they need something we figure out a way to say yes. >> reporter: demonstrating a well-funded federal government can help. >> part of the reason we will be able to respond quickly to all of this is because they helped to make sure that fema financing was in place. >> reporter: and leaving aside campaign jabs for post-crisis unity. >> you see neighbors helping neighbors and you are reminded what america is all about. >> on the down side, if power isn't restored for hundreds of thousands of americans, they could vent their frustration at the ballot box. and no one knows how the storm will impact turnout on election day. in the state hit by sandy or in the rest of the country watching this tragedy unfold. political observers initially said the storm could hurt president obama by depressing the early vote in battleground states. but the battleground states hit

by the storm, new hampshire and virginia, don't have in-person early voting. so not really a concern for the obama campaign. as for depressing turnout on election day, well, the storm could affect that. but the states hardest hit by the storm are blue states, new york, new jersey and connecticut. and even with a depressed turnout, they are likely to go for president obama any way. jessica yellin, cnn, the white house. >> i'm here with the hoboken mayor dawn zimmer. what a difference a day makes. last night the national guard hadn't yet arrived and here's what she said last night. >> i'm asking for the national guard to come in. we are desperate for the national guard to come in. we need specialized equipment to get to people and evacuate those that haven't been evacuated. i have been ask canning them. there's a chain of command.

>> what are you hearing. >> they are coming, they are coming but they are not here. >> that was last night. we aired that at 8:00. shortly after you got word that the national guard was coming. they arrived at 1:00 a.m. how are things today. >> we appreciate governor christie working to make sure the national guard came in and actually got a call from the white house and really appreciate -- there is some miscommunications that happened but president obama is really focused on making sure if there is a miscommunication he wants to know about it. really appreciate that we have the option now to reach out and if we need additional resource is, which we absolutely do and we will be making sure that we get the resources for the city. >> what's the greatest need? last time we talked on the phone, the last couple of days, at the time there were 50% of hoboken under water. how much now do you think? >> you know, it is hard to say. it is receding. so maybe it is a third of hoboken is underwater. and there's still people that can't get out of their homes an

we have been going around today. the first priority was medical emergencies. as we go around and focus on the seniors and people with young children, there's food. we need more food. we need more water, we need more resources coming in. so anyone who wants to make a donation can drop it off at hoboken high school here in hoboken. 8th and clinton street. we really appreciate those donations. >> we have been seeing our correspondent who was here earlier today saw a lot of volunteers. saw guys with poles trying to clear out the drainage, letting the water drain out. that has to be heartening to see. >> that's amazing. the volunteers have been amazing. i was out with a team of volunteers tonight. we were just going through, knocking on doors, checking on seniors, especially the seniors on the tenth floor of a building. they can't get downstairs and they can't climb all of those

stairs. so we were going around, check in on them, making sure they had food and water and that's what we need. we need more teams of volunteers making sure we are going to every building. even in the areas that aren't flooded. we need to check in on our residents that really need us right now. as we get through the power outage. >> the question you have been getting, is how quickly do you think the power can be restored. >> that's the question of the day. the estimates are a little scary, seven to ten days is what pse&g is telling us. we are working to make sure part of the issue for us is we need to get the water, two of our pump stations are flooded. actually really appreciate the support from the county. they are coming in. right now, as we speak, united water has come in with an additional pump. we are working to put together a plan to pump out the water

around the substation. hoping that can alleviate it so we can get pse&g in to repair the substations. because that supports a lot of the city of hoboken. >> i know you have been working around the clock. thank you for talking to us. i'd shake your hand but it is all dirty. use some purell. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> up next we will speak to a new york city firefighter who lost his home in the fire that claimed even more homes than we first believe. the flames fanned by the powerful winds of sandy. we'll be right back.

we learned today the giant fire that devastated the new york city community of breezy point, which we have been covering now for days, was even more destructive than first believed. fire officials upped the number of homes destroyed to 110. those flames were fanned by the gale-force winds of sandy as it pounded the region. today teams scoured the debris checking for victims. i'm joined by a former new york firefighter who lost his home in that fire. it is a miracle he's alive after

this disaster and in 2005 he amazingly survived another brush with death. he was nearly killed when his bike was hit by a 20-ton bus and sucked underneath it. this is one of new york's ultimate survivors. appreciate you being with us. i'm so sorry for your loss. how are you holding up? >> thank you, anderson. we are doing as well as can be expected. >> i know you went back home after the fire. is there anything that was salvageable? >> no. not at all. my street was right in the middle of the burn zone pretty much and everything was pretty much disintegrated. >> i was told when you went back you were looking for something special. what was it? >> my wife and i went back the next day and we were digging around and hoping to find something, and just before we

were ready to leave we looked down where the flower bed used to be and the girls, our two young girls grace and emily, had stones with their hand prints and names on them in the flower beds and i saw one of the purple stones there in the soot. so i scraped it off and dug it out and found the other one for emily and brought them home to the girls. >> wow. something you can never replace. we spoke to your father last night. he said it looked like warplanes had come through and destroyed the neighborhood. have you thought of what you are going to do now? what is the first step? how do you begin to rebuild? >> i think something of this magnitude will take some time before people decide what they are going to do as far as rebuilding. no doubt that breezy point and rockaway has proven time after time unfortunately after 9/11 and then the plane crash two months after september 11th it

is a community of faithful people and people that believe where they come from. so they will rebuild and find a way and i will be right there with them. >> yeah. again our thoughts are with you and your family and everyone from breezy point who's suffering tonight. breezy point will not be forgotten, nor will seaside heights, new jersey or atlantic city. appreciate you being with us. toms river where michael holmes witnessed the destruction up close. michael is there now. you got a first-hand look at new jersey's barrier islands today. what was that like? what did you see? >> we are one of the first ones in there among the media. what we saw was pretty shocking actually. we expected it to be bad and we have heard from the first responders who have been in there that it was bad but it was extraordinary. one of the first thing we saw driving through was an entire intact house in the middle of a street. it literally had been blown off and forced off by the water off

the foundation and put about 30 yards away from those foundations. the other extraordinary thing we are standing there looking down the road and noticed a puddle of water. it was actually a sinkhole that had a full-size pickup in it that you can barely see above the water line. these are the scenes that greeted the first responders, as well. houses had collapsed on to themselves and others had been blown off their foundations and others did not look to be damaged but then you saw the frame was twisted. a lot of the houses that don't look too bad will have to be pulled down any way. it is tens of millions of dollars. the other thing we noticed, as soon as we got up there was the smell of natural gas. you can hear it hissing from the wreckage of the houses and there were numerous fires all over the island. then we went to one place where there was an area, the size of three or four football fields levelled and blackened and the fire still burning.

that was an area that used to have dozens of houses on it. just quite an extraordinary, almost surreal thing. i have been to a lot of war zones. you look down a couple of streets and it looked like iraq after a battle had taken place with all the dead trees around and the damage and cars in various states of disrepair. it was quite an emotional thing for the first responders, too. the toms river police have done such an incredible job of getting out there quickly to help people. they were the ones showing us around. the police chief of 40 years there said he had never seen anything like this. we talked to the locals who stayed through the hurricane and regretted doing so. one poignant one, a man who had a wife who had alzheimer's and said he only stayed because she felt more comfortable in familiar surroundings and he looked back and said he wished he had left as well. obviously a lot of clearing to be done. it has started. we have seen 30 or 40 front end loaders going through there and

they were starting to scoop the sand off the street. the dunes that were 12 feet high are gone. the ocean blew through them and the sand is three or four blocks inside the townships. they are going to have to get rid of that. the destruction is just almost complete. anderson? >> yeah. so much work to be done. michael, appreciate it. generations of americans, not just people from new jersey, have memories of summers along the jersey shore, especially at the amusement parks. we want to show you what is left of the roller coaster in seaside heights. it is now sitting in the atlantic ocean and the boardwalk is gone. joining me is mayor bill acres. i know your community is devastated and that's a word we have heard a lot but it applies for your community. what's the latest information you have about the response effort and the safety of your residents? >> we had a meeting today with

the state and chiefs of police from the other towns affected by this. also emergency response people, oem and we're going to be doing a final door to door tomorrow 8 a.m. we will be knocking on the doors of anyone who is left. we need to get them out of this town. as we get closer to any service or utilities, whether it be a electric, water or sewer turned back on we need for their safety with all of the gas they should be out of the communities. we don't know what will happen as we start to go back on-line. probably within the next three to ten days. so that's going to be the first thing we do. >> do you have -- >> go ahead, sir. >> do you have any sense of the scope of the destruction at this point? the number of houses or lives affected? do you have any sense really? >> you know, i tried to -- i was

working as i was waiting to talk to you and other sheriffs to hear what is going on because i can't see a lot of it. the concerns we have is that as i have been through and walked under the boardwalk and you see the pilings are gone, the foundations of houses, the aerial views don't do justice to what we are seeing on the ground. and what people will have to come back and deal. it's more than i ever thought i'd see. you know you can prepare for it and think you know then you go through it you don't. you absolutely don't. >> yeah. >> those aerial pictures i have seen them so many times. it is hard to wrap your mind around it. the scale of it is just kind of mind boggling. so many people have mentioned

the special spirit of your community and the memories that they have of it and from not only from people from new jersey but visitors around the country and the world. what do you want people watching to know about your residents, about seaside height and what lays ahead? >> i think if anything the best part of seaside heights left intact which are the people, which are the great individuals we had out there working hard to secure the community and get it back on-line with the fire department, the responders, the first aid department, all of the volunteers. you know by the grace of god, they weren't touched. they are here. we are going to rebuild. we are going to be back. we will be different. there's no question about it. we will be different but we will be seaside heights and we will open our arms again to anyone,

well wishers around the world -- and you are right. it's amazing. i spoke with the chief of police and the texts that come over the line from people that have been here and have been touched in one way or another that are sending us so many wonderful thought and prayers. i guess that's what keeps you going. you get tired at the end of the day but you get a little sleep and you know what you are doing. you know it will be a good thing. it is just a long way off. just don't know when. >> yeah. well, i know a lot of people look forward to visiting the boardwalk when it is up again and the businesses are back and the community is back, as it will be. mayor akers we wish you the best and we will talk to you in the days ahead. thank you. >> thank you, sir.

up next, a giant crane still hangs a thousand feet above the midtown manhattan street at 57th street. another casualty. and we will hear from the expert of how to make this dangerous situation much safer.

good evening. we are coming tow you live from hoe boeng at an intersection that is flooded with water. very close to city hall. there have been a lot of terrifying moments in the storm for people. one of the most terrifying for new yorkers is the arm of a construction crane on top of a high-rise swung backward, broke in the high winds of the storm. the massive metal boom is left dangling 1,000 fight feet over midtown. police cordoned off several blocks. a lot of people evacuated from several buildings. it is still dangling. a live shot of the crane a couple of blocks from cnn. mayor bloomberg said that engineers determined it is securely fastened to the

building and said they will have to construct another crane on top of the building in order to take down the broken one. i spoke earlier with richard graham, a crane and construction expert the owner of diamond hoisting and rigging. appreciate you being with us. the city says the boom of the crane is secured, clearly not to the point where authorities will let people in the area, still cordoned off but perhaps more secure than it was. there are a number of variables in this. what do you make of the situation? how safe is this? >> well, hopefully the city engineers have inspected the upper assembly which is holding the entire crane in the air if that is secured, then the next number two item would be securing the boom itself to prevent that from detaching and falling to the ground.

>> the only way to get this thing down is basically to build another crane, a second crane on top of the power to dismantle the first one, is that correct? >> that is correct, anderson. typically what would happen, a derek would be assembled attached to the building itself and that derek would, in turn, dismantle the crane and remove the damaged components and possibly replace them or remove the entire drain. >> what do you think happened here was this just an error of somebody -- usually cranes kind of weathere they are able to last through the high winds. what was the mistake here? >> it is hard to say looking at the video. all electric tower cranes have a weather vane function, some are electrically controlled which means we are relying on electricity to complete that function. possibly the weather vane

function wasn't releasing it the way it should have been. looking at the video, the boom was pointed up toward the wind. had the crane been rotated 180 degrees in the opposite direction, we probably wouldn't have this conversation now. i don't think there would be any damage at all. >> right. it is still creating havoc in midtown around 57th street because the whole area is cordoned off. a lot of traffic around there and traffic jams all day ann long and people are evacuated from the surrounding buildings. appreciate your expertise and you talking to us. >> that part of midtown sits on fairly high ground. not so obviously as we have seen up and down the jersey shore, belmar, new jersey under water. yet all of that water has not been able to dampen the spirits of people that live there as randi kaye found out firsthand. >> if ever belmar, new jersey neighborhood needed an angel, they found one. they call him saint michael.

his real name is michael irwin. he's been boating people to and from their homes working 12-hour shifts. >> a couple of people needed to get out. a couple of our neighbors got out and their dog. chuck we got out and his dog lucky. there's a couple other people we got out to other families, make sure they are at dry land. >> lucky for his neighbors, he is a surfer and kayaker so he had a wet suit and he is a boy scout so he says he's always prepared. this area is known as the 8th avenue neighborhood and the water we're in right now, this is normally a street, an avenue, is about four feet deep. luckily most of the residents, not all of them, but most of them did evacuate before hurricane sandy even hit. irene mccann evacuated to her son's house, but now she has returned, she needs michael's help to reach her home. >> how much damage is in your

house? >> we are pretty high up. almost to our porch. we have a tall, high porch. we are on the corner here. the house with the red trim. and it is right up. hot water heater, furnace, everything's gone, my husband's tools everything. >> this is a tight-knit community where neighbors help neighbors. even the councilman brian mcgovern came by to see how everyone is doing. >> the situation is the worst i have seen it. i have lived in belmar 60 years. nothing has come close. i said to my wife what is the white stuff and it is a wave. in a couple of minutes our house was inundated by the water. >> michael has his troubles too. when it came to 6:00, 7:00 within a half hour we with were flooded. >> he took us by kayak to his house. >> this is your house behind us. >> right there. >> are we in your front lawn. >> in my driveway.

>> so your front lawn you are standing in it. >> you are also in about three feet of water. >> four feet of water, yeah. >> michael says he has about six feet of water in his house, no power or heat which is no surprise considering the amount of water here. ocean avenue is a few blocks away and the ocean dumped water this to nearby silver lake which overflowed in to michael's neighborhood. one look at this submerged car and you can see the water won't be receding anytime soon. >> randi kaye is joining us now. behind us you can see one of the national guard vehicles. there are several dozen vehicles here they have been using to patrol through the community here in hoboken and rescue people. they rescued 350 people in the last 24 hours since they have been here. in terms of where you were, any idea when that neighborhood belmar may get relief?

>> just before our live hit here, we saw a member of the national guard come by. asked if we needed anything. was checking on the neighborhood. they are looking for relief very soon. it's cold here. they don't have any power. they don't have heat. that's because of the water that is sitting here behind me. still tonight it is four feet deep and it's not going anywhere. as i mentioned ocean avenue is two stop signs down and the water isn't going away with the low tide. it is just sitting here. tomorrow the good news is they are going to bring in massive pumps that can pump out 40 to 60,000 gallons of water per minute. they are going to get started on that. hopefully that will bring the water out and get it to recede and then they can work on the power, which hey hope will be up and running in about a week. anderson? >> appreciate that. the water here in this intersection, hoboken, has been going down in the couple of hours we have been here. still find strange thing and a lot of photographs floating around.

a photograph of three friends having fun at a party and there's fish, if you can believe it or not, swimming around my feet. three or four-inch fish, very strange what you find in this water. when we come back, we want to honor the victims and the survivors of sandy, the names of the people we know so far and some of their stories. we'll be right back.

every storm is to some extent a random act of brutality.

one house is spared, another one is crushed. one block seems to have electricity and another has none. this is a story that is still unfolding. it's a story of people who have escaped death narrowly and some were not so lucky. it's a story unfolding of life, death and chance. >> jessie and her friend were out for what her family says was a quick walk in brooklyn monday night. they were walking her dog max. neighbors say an enormous tree was uprooted by the force of the storm and pinned them both beneath its weight. their bodies weren't discovered until early next morning. jessie was the daughter of an executive director of a new york advocacy group new york communities for change. she was eulogized as an amazing young woman and 24 years old. her dog was hurt but survived. lauren was a makeup artist, also 24.

in richmond hill the storm brought down a power line and it began to spark. the streets were drenched and lauren somehow touched the line according to police. rescuers were unable to reach her for a half hour. on the flood ravaged streets of staten island, an officer took his family to safety from he inside his home. he faced floodwaters racing in to his his. according to an official police count he had taken seven people including a 15-month-old to safety and was going back to check the basement. he never came out. his body was recovered 12 hours. those same floodwaters surged through staten island streets an absolutely horrific i event unfolded. a mother managed to unstrap her children, brandon age 20 and conner age 4 in their car seat as the water hit their suv. police would only confirm to cnn the two children are missing. the mother and sister said the

mom knocked on doors for help but was turned away. there were hundreds of rescues that led to happy ending. >> ma'am your feet are here. go ahead. >> this girl was inside of an apartment building when the roof blew off. >> what did it sound like. >> like it was cracking. >> very scary. did you have any idea what was happening? >> like the fire department came and knocked and told us to evacuate because the roof was going to fall. then i started to get scared. and started to hurry up and packing. >> we are just starting to learn the names of some of the people whose lives have been lost over the last several days. in the days ahead we hope to learn more and hope to bring you their stories to honor the lives they lived and the lives we've lost. [ male announcer ] one in four americans can't sleep.

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